Many coaches struggle with fresh ideas for youth basketball plays.  Here is one suggestion that  works very well.  Give it a try!

From John…
Out of Bounds Play

We taught the kids this basketball play back in 3rd grade but two years later it’s still working. It’s another version of the Stack play and the reason it works is because it plays right into the philosophy of youth rule #1 on defense “stay between your man and the basket”.

Out of bounds under your own basket, the players line up in a stack with the first man in the line starting on the box in front of the man taking the ball out. Typically the 4 defenders of the stack will all line up on the basket side of the stack. On “break” the first man in line jumps out of the stack towards the corner and either puts his hand out looking for the pass or actually calls out the name of the man taking the ball out. If he feels the defender follow him out of the stack he immediately turns and runs around the stack and cuts hard to the basket.

You’ll be amazed how often he’ll be wide open for a lay up. The other 3 kids in the stack don’t move until the first guy has run around the back of the stack. Then the 2nd man cuts to the corner (ball side), the 3rd man takes one step forward looking for a lob pass and the 4th man steps backward so we have a man back on D. After you do this a few times the defender of the first man in the stack will stop following him through and will wait on the other side of the stack for him to run around it. Now when the first man jumps out of the stack and doesn’t feel the defender following him he’ll be wide open for a short shot.

This is one of the basketball drills on proper shooting form that one of my Australian subscribers sent to me. Try this out with your team tonight!

From Chris…
I’ve been using this basketball shooting drill with junior teams over the last few years and find it useful. The kids love the challenge of trying to reach their target and concentrate really hard on making their shots.
The challenge is for the team to make 40 baskets in two minutes.

You split your group into two halves and both start from each side of the low block/post with a basketball for each group. (Our key in Australia is angled as per international rules.)

On the word ‘go’ the two groups try to make 10 layups…just by taking two steps and shooting (no dribble). After each person has shot they pass the ball to their team mate (the next in line). Once the whole team has scored a total of ten layups, the challenge is to make ten jump shots from the low block. We encourage the players to use the backboard square to assist in accuracy.  When they’ve made ten shots (now the running total is 20) the shots move to the foul line for both groups.

When they’ve made ten shots here (running total 30) they return to the low block for ten more two step layups to give a total of 40 shots.

But the clock is the challenge! You call down the time left in 30 second increments. Not many junior teams can complete the 40 shots in 2 minutes.
As added incentives you challenge the team to better their best score and add penalities (push ups etc) if their total score slips. I also deduct a point for any air balls to ensure the players concentrate on proper shooting form, rather than just chuck it up there hoping.

Hope this makes sense.

This is one of the basketball drills on proper shooting form that one of my Australian subscribers sent to me. Try this out with your team tonight!

From Chris…
I’ve been using this basketball shooting drill with junior teams over the last few years and find it useful. The kids love the challenge of trying to reach their target and concentrate really hard on making their shots.
The challenge is for the team to make 40 baskets in two minutes.

You split your group into two halves and both start from each side of the low block/post with a basketball for each group. (Our key in Australia is angled as per international rules.)

On the word ‘go’ the two groups try to make 10 layups…just by taking two steps and shooting (no dribble). After each person has shot they pass the ball to their team mate (the next in line). Once the whole team has scored a total of ten layups, the challenge is to make ten jump shots from the low block. We encourage the players to use the backboard square to assist in accuracy.  When they’ve made ten shots (now the running total is 20) the shots move to the foul line for both groups.

When they’ve made ten shots here (running total 30) they return to the low block for ten more two step layups to give a total of 40 shots. But the clock is the challenge! You call down the time left in 30 second increments. Not many junior teams can complete the 40 shots in 2 minutes.

As added incentives you challenge the team to better their best score and add penalities (push ups etc) if their total score slips. I also deduct a point for any air balls to ensure the players concentrate on proper shooting form, rather than just chuck it up there hoping.

Hope this makes sense.

This is one of the basketball drills on proper shooting form that one of my Australian subscribers sent to me. Try this out with your team tonight!

From Chris…
I’ve been using this basketball shooting drill with junior teams over the last few years and find it useful. The kids love the challenge of trying to reach their target and concentrate really hard on making their shots.
The challenge is for the team to make 40 baskets in two minutes.

You split your group into two halves and both start from each side of the low block/post with a basketball for each group. (Our key in Australia is angled as per international rules.)

On the word ‘go’ the two groups try to make 10 layups…just by taking two steps and shooting (no dribble). After each person has shot they pass the ball to their team mate (the next in line). Once the whole team has scored a total of ten layups, the challenge is to make ten jump shots from the low block. We encourage the players to use the backboard square to assist in accuracy.  When they’ve made ten shots (now the running total is 20) the shots move to the foul line for both groups.

One of my subscribers actually suggested this idea for girls basketball drills recently. I’ve included it for you below.  Keep ‘em coming!

From Doug…
Most of us have “day” jobs that keep us from focusing on the basketball drills and plays as much as we’d like.

I’ve begged borrowed and stole drills and plays for years. I still struggle with the best basketball plays though for grade school girls teams. I’ve coached from K - 8th grade girls and have run numerous plays but still do not feel we’ve found the right one(s).

The basketball drill that my teams have really liked is my warm up figure 8 drill.

We start them in one corner of the floor have the run forward for half the court, then at mid court they do the defensive shuffle across the court ( we have a coach do passing drills as they slide across), then run up the other half of the court. When they get to the end line they do the defensive slide across the end line, when they get to the next side line the run backward to midcourt where they do the defensive shuffle across mid court where a coach passes the ball to them again. Then they run backward again to the end line where they do running jumping drill across the end line back to the starting point. A couple times through and they are winded and warmed up.

Nothing ground breaking about this drill but my kids have liked it.

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